I had a coworker who showed me her son’s school essay; the assignment was to write about their families. Her son mentioned something about his grandmother making “simon crocketts” for dinner.

Me: “What are simon crocketts?”

Coworker: “They’re fried patties made from canned fish.”

I looked at her for a moment.

Me: “You mean salmon croquettes?”

She stared at me blankly. 

Coworker: “My family has always called them simon crocketts.”

My acquaintance’s daughter had problems with congestion in her lungs, so her mom would have her lay across her lap and she would rhythmically hit her daughter on the back — not hard enough to hurt her — to break up the congestion.

Her daughter was about six at the time. She went to school and said her mom beats her. As you can imagine, this did not go over well with the school.

They called my acquaintance in, and she had to explain what her daughter meant.

I work in a library. A woman with a toddler comes up to the help desk.

Patron: “Sorry, but I’ve been all over this place and I can’t find your daycare.”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we don’t have a daycare.”

Patron: “What?! Of course you do. My child is there every weekend.”

Me: “Maybe you’re thinking of another library, ma’am? We have a children’s book section, but no daycare.”

Patron: “But my husband brings my child here every weekend. Isn’t that right, [Child]?”

Child: “Yes, Mommy. I stay and look at the books for ages and ages.”

Me: “Ma’am, and I do say this as delicately as possible, but I don’t think your husband has been leaving your child in a daycare.”

She contemplates what I have just said, and I swear I see a steely cold resolve manifest on her face. She actually looks at her wedding ring and then removes it.

Patron: “Thank you. This is the kind of thing the lawyers were looking for.”

And with that, she casually walked out of the library. My coworkers and I took a mental snapshot of the child so that if we ever see them alone in the library in the future we will know it was Dad’s day to look after them.

When I went to pick my daughter up from her first day of preschool, the director wanted to speak to me. Apparently, she stood in front of the class and announced:

Daughter: “My name is [Daughter], I’m a cross-addicted alcoholic, and I’m grateful to be here.”

I then had to explain that her father sometimes brings the kids to his Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

I went home and told my husband, and we laughed and laughed. He didn’t bring the kids to his meetings anymore after that.

Back when I was still going to college, over a decade ago, I was visiting my family during winter break and had been traveling somewhere with my father when he asked me if we could stop by the American Legion — a bar/restaurant for American veterans where my father volunteered — on our way back home.

My father originally left me at the bar so he could do some work, but between my not liking the bar scene and everyone there being fifty or older, I grew bored quite fast and eventually went to investigate what was taking so long.

I found my father in front of a computer modifying some sort of document, and it was painful to watch. He was hunting and pecking at the keyboard at a painstakingly slow rate, and after watching a little, I realized he was retyping the same few sentences over and over again with only minor differences.

Me: “You know, you could just copy and paste that.”

Father: “Huh?”

Me: “You know, Control-C and Control-V?”

My father just looked at me like I was speaking in tongues. So, rather than explain, I asked if I could have his mouse. He was in the way of the keyboard, so rather than using the usual hotkeys, I highlighted the section he wanted to copy and then clicked and dragged the highlighted section down, which also copy and pasted the section where I dropped it.

Father: “Oh, wow! I didn’t know you could do that!”

I went on to show him such amazing concepts as the fact that he could double-click on a word and then start typing to automatically delete the word and replace it with what he was typing.

My father finished his chore of modifying the document a little while later and I rejoiced at finally leaving the Legion. However, I still remember his last comment as we were leaving.

Father: “I never knew you were so good with computers.”

I’d been telling everyone I planned to be a programmer since before I was seven. I set up and maintained the computers at our home for years before leaving for college, I’d created — and shown my father — multiple web pages and programs already, I’d already been promised an internship with one of the largest tech companies, and I would be building my own operating system from scratch for a class the next semester. But more impressive than all of that, at least according to my father, was that I knew how to copy and paste!